The Learning Process

One of the lessons I learned from Dale Carnegie's book "How to win friends and influence people" is that people HATE being proven wrong. Despite how right you are, people would trigger some inner defensive mechanism and attempt to denounce your accusation even though it may be perfectly logical, or if your intentions were absolutely pure. Although this may not be entirely true and certain people are humble enough to listen and learn, plenty of people out there are still capable of being dense and absolutely stubborn. If that wasn't the case, people would be abnormally happy and singing "kumbayah" in a psychadelic alter-universe of hippy individuals.

I realized that even this applies to various fitness "experts" and even to certain newbies who apparently think their method is absolute. (Yes, I thought I was doing the right thing too even when I started having a nagging shoulder pain) Bodybuilders allegedly think that they're Greek gods when they perform a 400 pound bench press, even though they're probably too stiff to perform even one pull-up or chin-up!! They'll probably just pound their chest, kiss their guns, and shrug it off.

It's good to exude a certain amount of confidence or swagger into what you do, albeit it's another thing to be totally obtuse and unwilling to learn. The world of fitness has a plethora of quick fixes and generic training schemes, and it's easy to be drawn into it especially being a neophyte gym-goer without any idea what he's doing. The consequences of a flawed training plan isn't that obvious from the get-go, in fact it's possible of being blinded by the initial gains, resulting in complacency and acceptance that the training plan is an absolute success. Even possible injuries or nagging pains might be dismissed deeper into the program, a ticking injury timebomb if you will.

I may not be a fitness expert, nor do I claim to be one. Nonetheless experience has taught me to question things and know the basis behind workouts I perform. Not every training program developed by a certified personal trainer is a sure-fire thing, it may not even be tailored for a person's particular genetic makeup or actual practical needs. It is imperative to never stop learning, and never go blindly into things that you barely understand.